Coronavirus and the Prospect of a Society Run by Experts

The basic national divide between conservative America and liberal/left America that has existed for decades – really since the 1960s – is continuing on in the new environment caused by the coronavirus crisis. The American Right continues to want a society informed by its Judeo-Christian heritage, given force by a government in which the original intent of the Constitution prevails, and its objective of limited government. The American Left continues to want an expansive government with a messianic character, empowered to do whatever is deemed necessary for its vision of “a better world,” and aided by science and technology. The current epidemic appears to have shuffled the deck to favor the Left.

The epidemic favors the Left, at least in the way it has been addressed. Controlling the epidemic has become the overriding priority, setting aside all other considerations. But surely for the nation as a whole, the economy is the first consideration. This was well argued by Pat Buchanan in a recent opinion piece questioning whether saving thousands of lives is worth precipitating a great depression, in addition to predicting the end of small government conservativism with the crushing debt economic rescue will bring. With businesses closed for weeks on end, that cannot help but be the result. One could be forgiven for thinking that the medical advisors advocating shutdown with their dramatic charts were fishing for numbers to overcome any possible opposition.

Was saving hundreds of thousands, or even low millions of lives more important than anything else? These were worst case predictions. The 1918-20 flu epidemic killed 670,000 Americans, and that was in a population of 106 million people. More than one half of one percent (0.6%) of Americans died. Today the same number of deaths (far beyond the top figure of 240,000 in a recent projection of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci) out of 326 million people would mean 0.2% of the population dies. And shutdowns in 1918-19 were local, not involving most of the states, as they have been this year.

By prioritizing “saving lives” over all other considerations, our political leaders have given enormous power to the people most competent to speak about how to save lives in the epidemic, namely, epidemiologists, but especially Drs. Fauci and Deborah Birx, who advise the President and (more importantly) have the ear of the public. By making the economy secondary, the government has precipitated the sharpest economic downturn in history, presaging a great depression. Most recently, by shutting down factories due to coronavirus fears, we are cutting off supply, causing supply chains to break.

Closing businesses and “social distancing” conceivably might be the most effective way to stop the epidemic, but it comes at the cost of destroying businesses, throwing millions out of work, and impoverishing the nation for a generation with a crushing debt. We need to remember that we are not talking about anything so impersonal as a “business,” but about many people who own and operate small businesses, who have devoted their lives to building up their business, and now see it going up in smoke in just a few days. This in itself is devastating, as is the owners’ helplessness to give employment to the millions of workers they employed, and who have lost their livelihoods.

So there is much more to the moral equation than just “saving lives” versus an affluent way of life. By making expert opinion on one objective (stopping the disease) all important, we cause a severe moral imbalance. This was recently well argued in an article in Public Discourse, which identified experts (who offer competent analysis of a particular problem), politicians (who offer prudence and should be making the final decisions), and the public (who offer common sense) as the important players in public decision making. It might be added that the common sense of the public is very valuable, since the public has perhaps a broader perspective than even the very intelligent experts, and must live (in this case for years), with the politicians’ decisions.

But it can easily be seen what will result if the experts who have favored a national shutdown continue to prevail. Their pronouncements gain enormous moral force, as well as scientific authority. The national meritocracy is trained in the far-left universities, and its vision will be incontestable by the average American – accepted as the only rational and moral way to think. Again, while some extraordinary precautions might be reasonably required, it is also reasonable that the drastic lockdown was unnecessary. Most people aren’t going to die, and we could, for instance, lower the speed limit to 35 mph, or eliminate cars if we are intent on “saving lives.”

The messianic role of the government in the Left’s vision militates against civil society. The state must intervene wherever necessary to achieve its objectives, which are overriding. This is precisely what “social distancing” is accomplishing. Organizations independent of the state cannot now meet in person in much of the country. People are now isolates, dependent on the state in many cases for financial help to get out of the crisis. Activities outside the home must be justified, and crises such as the supply chain crisis noted above call for government action. Groups must meet “virtually,” by electronic means that can be centrally controlled.

And central control is the point. Not surprisingly, the American Left strongly supports the shutdown, opposing certain treatments seeking to cure (particularly one recommended by the President), in favor of a vaccine, which will take many months, at least, to develop. But this is not surprising. The Left wants a social system with no problems. Rather than cures, it requires prevention. If it establishes its policy of prevention on this problem, it can more easily make (morally and scientifically authoritative) pronouncements on other policy issues. Any opposition is “harmful.” As the longtime anti-Left polemist David Horowitz has argued, the Left favors America’s enemies because they are collectivist.

Currently, America’s main collectivist enemy is China. Speculation has abounded about the origin of the virus in China, about the communist regime’s possible involvement in the virus’ origin at its Wuhan virology lab, and possible export by not restricting international travel out of Wuhan while the city was quarantined internally. But whatever truth there is in that, China appears to be clearly using the pandemic to export its centrally controlled vision of society as superior to a free society. For a number of years it has aspired to duplicate America’s Marshall Plan reconstruction of Europe with a its own Marshall Plan (in large measure its Belt Road Initiative). But post-war America was in a position to re-order a devastated continent. The chaos resulting from the disproportionate government response to the coronavirus pandemic gives China the opportunity, as the National Review article noted in the above link, to do the same with countries devastated by the pandemic, and gravely impair America’s previously strong economy as well. Additionally, it has been noted that the Belt Road Initiative results in a cycle of dependency on China, rather than enhancing countries’ economic strength.

But this is not surprising. Dependency, tyranny, and poverty are the natural results of socialist control, as we have seen recently in Venezuela, where the Left came to power democratically. The Left is indeed attacking the economy, but it is reasonable to say that it is against any economy. Economics is a modern science, and describes how production and consumption will naturally balance. Arguably, a capitalist economy is the only kind that there is. Socialism is just a human effort to make production and consumption what those in power think they should be.

As noted in my last article, the nation’s governors have assumed enormous power to determine what national policy will be in this crisis, power that they have constitutionally, but this writer believes many, if not most, exercised it unwisely. The power they assumed radically reduced personal liberties. The more conspiratorially minded feel that it is a test, to see how far people will comply. But there doesn’t have to be secret planning for different parts of the political spectrum to see avenues to power. The Left’s objective is to control society to remake it according to its own vision. That vision does not include traditional Christianity, and its doctrines of exclusive salvation and sexual morality. We should deny the competence of experts to override politics in the name of science, reason, and health because it is not true (no one is expert enough to dictate policy to the nation), but also because we need the religious freedom to obey God as we should. Unlike the state, we are accountable for the conduct of lives after we have lived this one.